Best 2-way room friendly speakers

Of any era I don't know but for the late 1950s My dad's JBL C36s with a extended range woofer midranrange driver the Iconic D-130 and the Aluminum short horn "bullet" 075 tweeter were contenders for best sound. They were clear and fast while others were more muddy. Given the ol,d style tube amps used at the time they weren't too tizzy. With modern SS these JBL "Signature" package speakers are a little hard and edgy but in their time....

Totem Forrest... Friendly to room with superb imaging and friendly to any amp tube or solid over 40wpc.

Shelby+Kroll Nano Monitors and Woofer Monitors!
Detailed and musical with a soundstage that doesn't loose center focus even when off axis.
The monitors drop off quickly at 100hz and the matching "sub" picks it up from there. Match with either a Dspeaker 8033c or the new Dspeaker Dual Core 2.0 and you will have a simple and excellent sounding system.

http://www.shelbykroll.com/

http://www.dspeaker.com/en/products.shtml

Good luck :-)

Hi Cdc,
I`m not certain your description concerning crossover types is right.Likely implementation is very significant.My Coincident speakers are 1st order designs that with most recordings completely disappear in my room. There`s no clue or sense the sound is coming from the speaker`s location at all(and these are large,5 driver speakers). Coincident makes a smaller 2-way(Triumph Extreme) that would I assume provide the same invisible act also.My speakers were`nt difficult to place in the room either.They are superbly coherent and seamless.A added bonus they`re high impedance with benign phase angles.I drive mine effortlessly with an 8 watt SET amplifier and play all genre of music,no problems.
Best of Luck,

Not sure of the technical reasons why, but my SP Tech Mini speakers with a waveguide and a crossover point of ~800Hz (!) are excellent off axis. I believe that they also have a 4th order crossover, but don't know how or whether this contributes to the off axis performance. z

Tekton Lore series... I own the Lore-S and it is wonderful in my 11 x 14 room. It has front firing bass ports that don't load the room as much as models with side-woofers or rear-firing ports.

I think the premise you heard regarding speakers like the Thiels might need to be reconsidered. For best results, first order speakers like the Thiels tend to require the listener to be far away enough from them (>8') for driver integration and listened to from a standard seating height, but don't require much more than that which would be required from most other typical speakers, and in some cases would require even less placement optimization. One could go as far as claiming that at least with a first order speakers there is at least one seating position that offers a level of accuracy that competing designs can't offer at any listening position. In that two way speakers don't typically offer very deep bass response, room loading becomes less of an issue with them. Perhaps one of the most room friendly 2-way speakers might be the first order concentric driver Thiel SCS's.

Thanks for the suggestions. By "room friendly" I mean they minimize room interaction. I listen to a Sanyo boom box quite a bit at work. While my home rig sounds considerably better, I am also VERY aware of what I have now decided is room reflections adding echoes to the sound. So I am not sure if Totem, Coincident, Tekton (love the price), etc. minimize room reflections. That is what I am looking for.

Rodge827, the Shelby+ Kroll is an exciting read and sounds like what I am looking for. I do not understand about the DSPeaker. Are you just eq'ing the NanoMonitor1.0 or using this to better integrate the woofer? I have used a variety of Eq like Behringer, and they all did so much damage to the sound that I preferred the uneven, uneq'd FR better.

Roscoeiii, SP Tech Mini also sounds promising but the price! I would need to find a used pair where I could get my money back if I did not like them. How big is the woofer?
Also, I listen at 60-75dB and the Audiocircle reviews say they need to be played loud or they are bright and do not sound so good.

Charles1dad, I'm not sure either about crossovers, just the sales pitch I have been fed.

at least with a first order speakers there is at least one seating position that offers a level of accuracy that competing designs can't offer at any listening position.

Unsound, what you say is EXACTLY what I like about 1st order. Would be nice to get that without all the room treatments.

Tannoy dual-concentric driver'd models have controlled (due to the waveguide/horn tweeter, depending on model) AND symmetrical dispersion (i.e. acts like a point-source). Very room friendly while still yielding a comfortably sized sweet-spot.

You may love them (I do), or you may think "meh". You probably haven't had much exposure to them because Tannoy doesn't market strongly in North America, but they're an excellent alternative.

Audiokinesis.

Danley Synergy. Point source, phase accurate, and controlled directivity all together. And very sensitive. Not very pretty though.

I've heard the Tannoy's and the big ones are great, smaller not so good.
Danley, at 48" with 18 drivers is way to big.

I don't really think that first order speakers really need extra room treatment compared to most other designs. Still the Thiel SCS's somewhat unique concentric driver design eliminates the driver integration issues that are needed for optimal listening of most first order speakers.
A past long time contributor who stopped contributing when he became part of the commercial side of all this; Karl Shuemann of AudioMachina's first offering, though perhaps challenging to find, was a 2-way first order speaker which incorporated some wave guide principles. He seems to have abandoned the wave guide with his latter more ambitious and expensive designs. Though I've never heard any of them, they sure do look promising.
Though I doubt these are what you had in mind, as they meet your criterion and are purposely built to negate room interaction, I'll mention them: the Innersound speakers.

Cdc,

When properly amplified, the SP Tech Minis are solid at low volumes. This said by an apartment dweller who listens late into the night.

Where are you located?

Merlin TSM seem to disappear in room and no need for sweet spot listening. I have had them set up for a couple weeks in a temporary room and couldnt be happier.

Audio Physic. Just follow their setup instructions and room size guide.

Yada, yada, yada. Sorry, no disrespect intended to well intended suggestions, but you don't provide nearly enough information for truly meaningful suggestions. What amp? Are you keeping the Denon? Where are you placing your speakers in the room? What is the room like? After 40+ years (ouch!) in this hobby, about the only thing that I have learned with absolute certainty is that generalizations mean very little; ESPECIALLY re speaker placement and speaker/room interactions.

In your system page you give glowing reports to the sound you get with your one-way speakers, and you do a good job of describing what you like about them and why. Why not keep them and add a subwoofer like a REL Strata for full(er) range sound? A lot of flexibility re sub placement, and you get to keep everything that you like about your current speakers; and more, as a well integrated sub will improve just about everything.

Good luck.

Frogman, how would the amp affect room interaction with the speakers?

My question was more a general one about speakers that minimize room interactions like a 4th order design. Rather than use a lot of room treatments or endless fiddling with speaker position like 1st order which has large driver overlaps so reflected sound has a bigger effect I listen ~nearfield pointing right at the listening position in a reflective small room.

Adding a sub would not help with the sound reflections with my single driver speakers. Although, like you said, it would give a fuller sound. I don't know if single driver is so great. I'm sure I would be HAPPIER with some Magico's, Catrmel's, or Intuitive Summits, but I don't know if I would be SATISFIED.

So what would you suggest? I like the suggestions so far like dual concentric Tannoys, wave guides, or those nifty Shelby+ Kroll nano monitors.

Hi Cdc

This is in response to your question about the Dspeaker gear. Depending on your needs you may want or need a Woofer Monitor. The Woofer monitor is more like a bass augmentor for the Nanos rather than a sub. I suggested the Despeaker Gear to take care of room nodes that will affect the sound quality of any speaker that you choose.

I have used both the 8033s and Dual Core Anti-Mode from Dspeaker with my 2.2 Shelby+Kroll speaker set up with very good results.

If you are considering the Nano Monitors only, then you will not need the Dspeaker products. The Monitors are a very good speaker on their own.

Enjoy

Seems 2.2 Shelby+Kroll speaker and SP Tech mini are no more